[hold]

Hold the mayo. Hold the mustard. Hold the phone calls. Hold the e-mails. Hold the comments; hold the advice, hold the criticism; hold the alcohol; hold the news, hold the complaints. I'm too busy holding my baby, holding her world up, while I try to hold on to some sense of time, date and order to my life. Hold the questions about what I do all day; hold the comments about how long I'm breastfeeding; hold the perplexed looks; hold the latest research on what I should be doing. It's all "la la la" to me anyway. All my attention is going to holding knowing gazes long enough with my little baby that I don't have to take a picture, holding her tiny hand while she drinks in her favorite beverage, holding her head still, still on my shoulder that we might make it all the way in from the car to the house with no disturbances to her sleep or even plot changes to her hopefully happy dreams, holding my breath when I think something other than patient words might come out of my mouth as she turns over to crawl away yet again during our diaper change, and holding on to the pieces of my rapidly morphing family as we soar down this roller coaster of parenthood so that we arrive wherever we're going all still intact. (laura)



Living on a prayer, holding fast to the center, circling in flight while holding. Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us. Except sometimes they do. I hold my son as though he were a part of me that had always been missing. My life before him shimmers so distantly from the importance, the weight, the depth, the breadth of this moment. The here and now. All in a second's breath. He molds to my form with his, he hold my silver charms in his teeth, holds my hair in his hands, holds my fingers in his sleep, holds onto soft bath towel and avocado and veggie puffs and teething biscuits and drum sticks and prayer bowl and CD cover and ball and spoon and toy hammer and the dog's tail and his very own remote control, all the same, all with equal parts wonder and joy, ownership and knowledge that they may all eventually, some sooner than later, fall from his grasp. It is a lesson, how fleeting, how we hold on. And yet he knows he can hold on to me in order to stand, to reach for what's above him, to comfort and console him, to reassure him when the noises are loud and mysterious, or a stranger wants his attention. I can only hope to hold him in the deepest stillness, teach him the value of resting there while the world spins out of control around us, teach myself the great lesson in letting go, loosening the hold, closing the eyes, and trusting the wind for once, to navigate the rough terrain of the heart and time. (liz)